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Posts Tagged ‘national-security’

Is writing on toilet walls still a thing?

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , on July 24, 2025| Leave a Comment »

Without commenting in any way on the merits of the case, the news that a young man had been arrested and charged with writing a seditious message on a toilet wall was … pleasantly nostalgic.

Writing on the walls of public toilet cubicles used to be a widespread hobby and some walls in popular … establishments were virtually covered in writings and drawings. Well prepared graffiti artists had pencils or pens; the rest of us just scratched.

Of course many of the results lacked artistic quality and most of them were obscene. Among the more printable was the almost universal assurance that “Kilroy was here.” A variety of theories are offered about who Kilroy was and why he was commemorated in this way.

I also recall coming across “Clap your hands and jump with joy; I found this wall before Kilroy” to which someone had added “Kilroy built it.”

Public toilets in the more academic parts of Oxford sported graffiti of a more learned kind. Many of them were in Latin; a few in ancient Greek. Some users spent their toilet time composing alphabets: A is for Anabasis, B is for Binomianism, C is for Critical Theory and so on.

Inevitably, academics have swooped. Selection of findings here. Sample discovery: “Females discussed body image more than males did. There was also a difference in focus: females listed their height and weight, whereas males listed their penis size.”

A more civilised habit, in private homes, was to decorate your toilet walls with examples of entertaining newspaper errors of the “Headless body found in topless bar” kind. Many of these came from The Guardian, which was so notorious for the laxity of its proofreading that Private Eye called it The Grauniad

It must be said, however, that in the vast majority of English toilets the graffiti, if there were graffiti, were fairly crude and disgusting. However this was a result of the fact that the toilet cubicle was private. You could do what you liked in there and nobody would know. At my boarding school there were actually crowds in some cubicles at break times, of smokers.

So I am a little concerned at the news that someone has been arrested and charged for defacing a toilet wall. The question is how did they catch him?

I assume … I hope … there is no question of CCTV in the cubicles at Hong Kong China City, where the deplorable deed is alleged to have taken place. I realise we are on camera a lot these days. City Super actually has cheerful notices saying “Smile! You’re on CCTV”. Shoplifting is a serious matter and I yield without complaint the right to televise the avocados.

The toilet is another matter. No doubt writing on the walls is only one of the many ways in which the privacy of the cubicle can be abused, but privacy there should nevertheless be.

Other theories are also a bit worrying. Does Hong Kong China City expect its toilet attendants to inspect a cubicle after each visit to make sure the walls have not been defaced? Or do the national security cops keep an eye on suspected subversives by poking a periscope over the partition from the next cubicle?

No doubt the ensuing trial will be a big attraction to the media and all will be revealed in due course. Meanwhile the story also has a serious side. The suspected scribbler could face seven years in jail if his work is considered seditious.

As a police spokesman memorably put it: “doing with a seditious intention an act or acts that had a seditious intention is a serious offence”. Also it’s a national security offence, so even if your only audience was a toilet wall you don’t get bail.

Kilroy was here, and has moved to Canada.

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An offenders registry? National security does not need this sort of help

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , on May 28, 2025| Leave a Comment »

National security took care of herself for many decades in Hong Kong. Now it appears the poor lady is in constant peril. Or so you might think from the number of white knights galloping to her rescue.

Latest is Mr Greville Cross, who amused readers of the China Daily with a piece entitled “Keeping tabs on released offenders reduces risks”.

Mr Cross notes with concern that four of the famous 45 primary election offenders recently emerged from prison, and several more will soon follow. He believes that prison is supposed to have a salutary effect on inmates, but worries that “if … individuals have committed crimes against society that are politically motivated, they may also be resistant to reform.”

This apparently was “partially addressed” by the provision in the Safeguarding National Security Ordinance (the latest legislative masterpiece on this topic) which states that nat sec offenders are not eligible for the usual early release schemes unless the Commissioner for Correctional Services thinks they will not be a threat.

New to me was the additional snippet that the Commissioner is “advised” in this matter by the Committee for Safeguarding National Security, a high-level group of law and order officials who will not, perhaps, be inhibited in their deliberations by thoughts of rehabilitation or reform.

But what to do when the offender comes to the end of his or her sentence? Mr Cross goes on to note that Singapore has solved this problem with legislation empowering the Home Affairs minister to keep people in jail indefinitely if they are “a threat to the public”.

Oddly we are not told, although it appears relevant, that our motherland has also solved this problem. People deemed “a threat to the public” disappear into the detention system for years, sometimes for ever. However the UK and Hong Kong have (unlike Singapore) signed up for the International Convention on Civil and Political Rights, so something like this is “unlikely”.

Thus at the moment there is no arrangement for monitoring nat sec offenders post-release. However the UK has “shown a possible way forward”. And where is this seductive highway to security? The Sex Offenders Register.

Under this, convicted sex offenders are required to register with the police, provide addresses and other information, admit inspecting police to their homes at any time, and so on. The register can be consulted by potential employers.

We could have a “National Security Offenders Register”, Mr Cross suggests, which “would go a long way toward neutralizing any continuing threats to national security posed by offenders who have completed their sentences. It would enable the police to keep tabs on them, and the individuals concerned would know they needed to be careful.”

Wow! Lots of places have registration schemes of one kind or another for sex offenders, They are particularly popular in the US. A variety of bells and whistles are commonly added to the basic requirement of an occasional visit to a police station.

Actually they are not particularly effective. Repeat offending among sexual offenders is rather rarer than for more conventional criminals. Victims of such repeat offences generally knew their partner (the vast majority of sexual offences are committed in the home) was on the register. Some critics have dismissed registers and the associated restrictions as having very little effect beyond depriving the released offender of two keys to a successful return to society: somewhere to live and a chance of employment.

The whole idea is based on the questionable notion that crime can be prevented by identifying potential offenders and looking ostentatiously over their shoulders. So far as it inconveniences the released offender it also violates the basic principle that people should be punished for what they have done, not for what they might do in future.

Of course how this will work in Hong Kong depends a lot on the details. Will the released offender be required to wear an an ankle tracker, report regularly to a probation officer, undergo weekly drugs tests? Will he be forbidden to go – or live – within 1,000 yards of any police station, government office or other national security establishment?

Will the offender have to register email addresses, Watsapp numbers, any name used on the internet, his car registration, his Octopus number? Will the register be public? Indeed will the police, as they are in some American jurisdictions, be expected to notify the neighbours if a released offender moves in nearby?

Somewhere at the bottom of this slippery slope we may be heading for a national security equivalent of the Sexually Violent Predator Order, under which the offender who has served his sentence is shunted into a “hospital” in which treatment is a choice but leaving is not.

Anyway, this is a really bad idea. It will generate international criticism; most common law countries will take the view that a sex offenders registry is one thing and a political offenders registry is another. Domestically Mr Cross notes that some 20 per cent of prisoners reoffend within two years of discharge. But that means 80 per cent do not. They are entitled to their freedom.

And it is not as if, without some formal scheme, released national security offenders are going to disappear from view completely. Presumably those three hotels full of nat sec specialists, not to mention our friendly local police force and patriotic nosy neighbours, will be looking out for signs of sin.

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National security guidelines: could this be Too Much of a Good Thing?

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , on November 18, 2024| Leave a Comment »

Civil servants are to get a new set of guidelines next year, according to Security Secretary Chris Tang, which will show them how to safeguard national security in their daily duties.

Announcing this interesting project in Legco, Mr Tang said the exercise would “change the mentality and mindset of our colleagues, to embed the concept of national security in their brains.”

This seems to be asking a lot from a set of guidelines. But the really puzzling bit comes next. The new guidelines will be confidential. I quote from the HKFP report: “It must be confidential. If others know about how we remind our colleagues [to safeguard national security], those endangering national security will try to escape from [being caught],” Tang said in Cantonese.

And at this point Mr Tang really seems to have crossed from optimistic to delusional. According to the government publication Hong Kong the Facts, “As at March 31, 2024, the civil service employed about 173,100 people (excluding judges, judicial officers, officers of the Independent Commission Against Corruption and locally engaged staff working in the Hong Kong Economic and Trade Offices outside Hong Kong) or about 4.6 per cent of Hong Kong’s labour force.

Under modern circumstances – or for that matter in ancient ones – the idea of a secret being preserved between more than 170,.000 people is clearly preposterous. A professional spy will laugh at the idea. With so many targets he will expect to have an informant already – motivated in the usual way by ideology, money or sex – who will pass him the guidelines in a matter of days.

The amateurs who just enjoy sticking it to the Man will need a bit longer. But the end result will be the same. We could run a sweepstake on how long it will take before the guidelines are uploaded to some subversive website beyond the reach of the Hong Kong government. What is your money on? One month? Two?

The good news for Mr Tang is that this is unlikely to be a huge help to people who do not care for national security.

His idea seems to be that there is some secret giveaway, known to the Security Branch but not to its assorted enemies, which the well-briefed civil servant can spot in a subversive. If this secret gets out, then the assorted enemies can change their spots, abandon their tell-tales, whatever they are, and so avoid detection.

This sounds very much like the sort of thing which used to go on in European countries when they still believed in witches. Elderly lady living alone? Suspicious. She has a cat? Clearly an emissary from the Dark Lord. She has a broomstick? What more evidence to we need? Send for the witchfinder, who will find the definitive sign: a place where she does not feel pain.

We can all look forward with interest to discovering what the secret giveaway for national security violators might be. A foreign phone? Stays late in the office alone? Arrives early? Wears Pooh Bear tee-shirts at the weekends?

There is a serious side to this, of course. Whatever the concealed Mark of Treason might be, it is not going to be conducive to good morale if everyone in the civil service is constantly casting a suspicious eye over his colleagues.

There will, I fear, be cases in which a sincere mistake is made, leading to unjustified suspicion being cast, and much distress and anxiety to the victim. Alas, there will also probably be cases in which a spurious mistake is made, as a way of putting a spoke in the wheel of some rival candidate for promotion or apres-office sex. If you give everyone a dangerous weapon some people will mishandle it.

I do wonder if someone could perhaps persuade Mr Tang that even in national security matters there can be such a thing as Having Too Much of a Good Thing.

Civil servants are already required to swear allegiance to the government. Their code of conduct now starts with “upholding the constitutional order and national security.” Judicious pruning has removed objectivity and impartiality, so the persecution of independent bookshops and inconvenient political bodies is now unimpeded.

Most civil service jobs have little or no connection to national security, however broadly defined. They have taken the oath and read the code. Surely that should be enough. Or are they also required to love Big Brother?

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Student leader’s case a grotesque parody of the Rule of Law

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , on September 26, 2024| Leave a Comment »

Lord Sumption, a retired British Judge and formerly one of our token foreigners on the Court of Final Appeal, was roundly denounced by the usual government spokesman when he marked his retirement from the CFA with an article in the Financial Times, complaining that the rule of law could no longer be relied on in Hong Kong.

“The rule of law is profoundly compromised in any area about which the government feels strongly,” his Lordship wrote. And this brings us to recent developments in the case of Mr Kinson Cheung King-sang. Before we get to the developments, though, some background.

Mr Cheung was the chairman of the Hong Kong University Students’ Union, back in the days when students were allowed such things. The union’s committee, in an ill-advised moment, passed a motion expressing sympathy for a man who had attacked a policeman and then killed himself.

The motion was rescinded the following day, but this was not enough to head off a major reaction in pro-government circles and several students, including Mr Cheung, were arrested. Three people were eventually charged: the proposer and seconder of the errant motion, and Mr Cheung because he chaired the meeting. When I was a student union chairman I was expected to be neutral when chairing meetings, so this looks a bit odd. But they’re not hot on democratic conventions in pro-government circles.

The three chosen ones were charged initially with encouraging terrorism, an offence under the Beijing-imposed National Security Law. After negotiations this charge was replaced with “incitement to wounding with intent”, an obscure but ancient and respectable limb of the Common Law. The three defendants then pleaded guilty. This enshrined an interesting legal notion, that the union’s motion had “incited” an act which had already happened when it was passed, and whose perpetrator was dead. Well, lawyers understand these things.

We must note at this point that Hong Kong now has in effect two legal systems. One of them, which we may call option A, is the traditional one, based roughly on the notion that, as the legendary jurist Blackstone put it, “it is better that ten guilty men go free than one innocent one suffer.”

The other one, option B, is for national security cases only, and dispenses with precautions – some of which go back to Blackstone’s time (1723-1780) – intended to reduce innocent suffering. Getting our ten guilty men behind bars gets a higher priority.

So the defendant no longer has the right to be brought promptly before a magistrate, the right to bail, the right to a jury in serious cases, the right to a judge not selected by the prosecution, or the right to the counsel of his choice. Reading national security cases one sometimes wonders if the presumption of innocence has been eroded a bit as well.

Another feature of option B is a limitation on the right of a convicted prisoner to participate in early release arrangements for prisoners who behave themselves in jail. This was not part of the gift from Beijing; it was a local inspiration incorporated in the Safeguarding National Security Ordinance. Inmates may be released early only if the Commissioner for Correctional Services is satisfied that such release will not endanger national security.

So here we have Mr Cheung, so far subject to option A, under which he was sentenced to two years in prison. He then appealed on the grounds that the sentence was too severe. The Court of Appeal agreed, replacing his two-year sentence with one of 15 months. The interesting consequence of this was that, assuming the usual discount for good behaviour, he was now eligible for release. The law works slowly these days.

But nothing happened. Mr Cheung was not released. He then applied to a High Court judge to order his release. At the first hearing the judge was sufficiently impressed to consider releasing him on bail pending full discussion of the matter, but was talked out of it by counsel for the government.

The following day a magical transition had occurred: Mr Cheung’s legal ordeal had been moved from option A to option B. The Commissioner for Correctional Services, apparently a fast worker, had accordingly considered whether Mr Cheung’s release would endanger national security, and decided it would.

The magical transition took the form of a decision of the National Security Committee, a gathering of government security bigwigs including an “adviser” who represents our landlord. The NSC had ruled that Cheung’s offence “involved national security” and that his early release would be “contrary to the interests of national security.”

Senior Counsel Mike Lui, representing the government, said “The development since the adjournment yesterday has been nothing short of momentous,” with which one can only agree.

The National Security Committee was set up under the National Security Law, which outlines its powers and duties as follows:

The duties of the National Security Committee are to analyze and assess developments in relation to the safeguarding of national security in the HKSAR, make work plans, formulate policies, advance the development of the legal system and enforcement mechanisms, and coordinate major work and significant operations.

Call me a legal pedant, but I do not see anything there which suggests that the National Security Committee has a role in adjudicating on individual cases, or that it would be proper for the NSC to issue detailed instructions to a judge hearing a case. The local Nat Sec law, on the other hand, says that:

The courts are to adjudicate cases concerning national security independently in accordance with the relevant provisions of the Basic Law and the HK National Security law, free from any interference.

I infer that the judge in this case had the cart the wrong end of the horse when she said that “No jurisdiction [in Hong Kong], including the Judiciary, shall interfere with the decision made by the [national security committee]. His detention is fully lawful.” Did it not occur to the learned judge at all that the NSC might be exceeding its powers, or are we now so cowed that the idea of a government body exceeding its powers has become meaningless?

In jurisdictions which enjoy the rule of law it is out of order for essentially political or administrative bodies to jog the elbow of judges actually adjudicating cases. The committee, or the legislature, may change the rules, but in the meantime defendants and convicts are entitled to know what rules apply to them. This case is a grotesque parody of the rule of law, the more unpalatable because the government seems to be motivated entirely by the spiteful inclination to nullify the Court of Appeal’s decision and keep Mr Cheung behind bars for as long as possible.

After all the implications for national security are trivial: Mr Cheung will be free in November anyway. I also note that the judge who granted Mr Cheung pre-trial bail (over-ruling a magistrate who had refused it) did not seem to think that Mr Cheung was a great threat to national security.

I met a lot of student union chairmen when I was one. Two of the creepier specimens eventually became government ministers. Nobody became a revolutionary. I am sure Mr Cheung will in due course become a respectable member of society … with, perhaps, some highly critical views of the Hong Kong legal system.

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